


Paradise Lost

by MVforVictory



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Aka the good shit, Angst, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Dissociation, Found Family, Gen, Han Jisung | Han-centric, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I PROMISE ITS NOT SAD THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH, M/M, OKAY LISTEN, OT8, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, i accidentally added a lil hyunsung oops, im sorry I like hurting Sungie, sorta - Freeform, sorta again it’s not crazy explicit, the minsung is minor but THERE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26254834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MVforVictory/pseuds/MVforVictory
Summary: Jisung is nine years old when he scratches the wordloveinto the wall of his bathroom. He’s nine years old and the wall is even older, plaster gives way easily under the point of the small pocket-knife his brother gave him before he left.Jisung is eleven when he figures out how to make the itch under his skin go away. The wordlovefinds a new place to be carved, and it’s not a wall.Jisung is seventeen when he realizes he isn’t alone anymore.Jisung is eighteen and the wordloveends up scratched on his heart by seven others.Jisung is eighteen and he’s learning that love doesn’t have to hurt.
Relationships: Bang Chan & Han Jisung | Han, Bang Chan & Han Jisung | Han & Seo Changbin, Bang Chan/Seo Changbin, Han Jisung | Han & Everyone, Han Jisung | Han & Hwang Hyunjin, Han Jisung | Han & Kim Seungmin, Han Jisung | Han & Lee Felix, Han Jisung | Han & Seo Changbin, Han Jisung | Han & Yang Jeongin | I.N, Han Jisung | Han/Hwang Hyunjin, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 41
Kudos: 321





	1. lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anchan_thevolleyballplayer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anchan_thevolleyballplayer/gifts).



> HI HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY AN!!
> 
> I know this is like... _not_ the kind of fic you gift someone for their 18th lmao but you’re the only reason I actually brought myself to type this past the 3k blurb I was intending on trashing it at 
> 
> hope u like it 🥺🥺
> 
> (like I said, this started as a vent fic and I had no intention of finishing it but HERE WE ARE)

Jisung is nine years old when he scratches the word _love_ into the wall of his bathroom. He’s nine years old and the wall is even older, plaster gives way easily under the point of the small pocket-knife his brother gave him before he left. 

His cheek hurts less like this, pressed against the cool tile as he watches soft powder dust around him. There’s an uncomfortable feeling that sits under his skin, wrapped around his bones, that never seems to go away anymore. An ache that holds tight and refuses to release.

Jisung is eleven when he figures out how to make it go away. The word _love_ finds a new place to be carved, and it’s not a wall. 

It’s shallow, he’s gotten deeper scratches from the stray cats that run around the streets here in Malaysia, and his school pants are loose enough that the fabric doesn’t irritate it nearly as much as jeans do. 

But Jisung finds that he doesn’t mind the itchy, pinchy feeling of jeans against the word because it’s a great distraction. 

His father hurts him, so he hurts himself more. 

Jisung is thirteen when his father catches him holding hands with a boy. His options are to watch him ruin a kid’s life or pack up and move back to Korea. Jisung picks Korea. 

Jisung is thirteen when he looks at the _love_ carved just above the trim of his bathroom wall for the last time. The door is locked and he’s alone, nothing but him and the water that laps at his face as he tells himself this is the only solution. 

The water around him swirls red, Jisung lifts a heavy arm up to watch as it falls through his fingers and back into the tub. It stings his arms and his legs, and every other place he’s defaced in the past two years, but this is the deepest he’s ever gone before. 

He made the realization today that he wants to die. 

Maybe he’s known that for years, as something that stayed in the back of his mind because he’s too scared to put a name to it, but today was when it really hit him. Right after his father did. 

He hopes it will happen faster. Maybe he should have gone deeper but he was scared. He was afraid of living and afraid of dying, left in a useless limbo. 

Jisung is thirteen and _so close_ when his father bangs on the door to the bathroom, calling him names and telling him to get his ass out and fucking pack. Their flight is tomorrow and Jisung hasn’t done anything. He didn’t think he’d have to. 

He figured there was enough time to do what he needed before his father got home but it looks like he was wrong. 

There’s no way the lock could ever hope to stop the angry mass of his father from getting in if he really tries. Not a single place in this house can be called _safe,_ it is his father’s, after all. Jisung is merely just another possession to be broken and discarded. 

Jisung is thirteen when he sees his mother for the first time in 5 years. 

He’s barely fourteen when she presses a burning cigarette against his palm for talking out. It’s his birthday. 

He’s just like his father, she says. Too rough around the edges and trying to hurt her. 

Jisung is fourteen when he realizes she is sick. 

When he realizes there has always been something fundamentally wrong with his family. 

His father's anger has always been an issue. Jisung thinks that had been creating chasms and holes in the delicate porcelain of his mother, years before Jisung was even a factor. 

His mother played pretend, convincing herself that none of this was actually happening. It was still the high-school fantasy she longed for when she was younger. 

And Jisung has been balancing on the edge of a blade for years, trying not to fall. 

He’s in a new school in a new (not new?) country, with customs he doesn’t remember and people that find him strange. 

But Jisung knows how to fake his way through everything, he must have learned it from his mother. He knows how to make friends but keep them at an arm's length and never closer, because getting closer means getting hurt.

He meets a few people but no one really stands out, just like no one really asks about the bruises that stain his skin or the bandages that wind around his arms.

One of the friends he had met asks him to go to a company audition with him. Jisung was honestly surprised that he was even an option for something like that. Somehow, he’s convinced to audition, too.

Jisung is fourteen when he gets accepted to JYP, giving him an out of the hell he’s found himself trapped in. His father isn’t very happy but it gets Jisung out of his hair so he tells him to have his mother sign off on it because he doesn’t even care. Jisung’s mother cries as she signs the paper.

He meets Chan not long after that. 

The older boy immediately takes him under his wing and Jisung could not have been more grateful. He doesn’t pry when Jisung flinches away from his touches, only gives him a gentle smile and waits for Jisung to come to him first.

Changbin follows soon after. Jisung now has two people that ruffle his hair and praise his rapping. He’s happy, he stops feeling the itch under his skin. 

It doesn’t last. 

Jisung is fourteen when he has to buy his first suit. 

He hates it. It’s hot and stiff, too tight around his chest. It’s hard to breathe in and almost as constricting as the atmosphere. The lights are too bright, Jisung can feel his hands sweating and shaking as he fists them in the fabric of his slacks. 

It’s his mother’s funeral and his brother doesn’t even show up.

Chan and Changbin offered to join him for support, but Jisung declined. He didn’t want them to see him like this. They’d tell him to grieve, to let himself feel and not bottle everything up. 

His father doesn’t look remorseful about the fact that the woman he married has taken her own life, except when relatives and family friends come forward to offer their condolences. 

Jisung barely hears what they’re saying to him. His mother was practically a stranger to him, but she was still his mother and now he doesn’t have one. 

Maybe he was always holding out for the day their relationship could be fixed. A day where his father was no longer present and she didn’t see him instead of Jisung, despite the obvious differences. 

Now there’s no chance of that ever happening. Jisung is fourteen and his mother has done the one thing he couldn’t do. 

He couldn’t cry for a stranger, so Jisung stood there with a heavy head and an itch under his skin that was begging for a release. 

It’s the first evening he spends at home in weeks. Months, really. His father doesn’t look at him once during the drive home, but his anger is clear in the white-knuckle grip he keeps on the steering wheel. 

He doesn’t speak. Jisung stays silent too. 

It’s something he learned long ago. The quieter he stays, the faster it’s over and yelling hasn't ever worked so he doesn’t try anymore.

He finds himself in a familiar position. The bathroom is different though so he reaches out and scratches the word _love_ in the wall just behind the sink with a jagged nail and lets out a breath as he lays in the same spot his mother had, closing his eyes and imagining he had been the one to take the pills instead. 

Jisung rolls onto his back as his phone lights up with messages from both Chan and Changbin. Asking how it went and promising him all the sweets in the world when he comes back. It’s followed by a picture of the pair crouching in front of his empty studio chair and more plushies than he’s ever possessed in his life.

Jisung is fourteen and he’s got something to live for. 

So instead of trying again, he manages to drag himself back to his old room to hang up his suit in his closet. He hopes it rots there with every skeleton buried beneath it and falls asleep clutching his phone in his hands, the picture still pulled up.

* * *

But, like most things, it gets worse before it gets better. 

The next morning, Jisung is woken up by screaming and something heavy hitting the ground. Startled, he doesn’t even think before scrambling out of bed and out the door. 

He almost trips down the steps when he hears his brother’s voice. They’re arguing and Jisung knows that any small fight between the two will escalate to something much worse. 

But where Jisung takes after his mother in his smaller frame, his brother is just like their father. Broad, wiry muscle lining his limbs that matches his whip-fast intellect.

They’re a formidable pairing, and Jisung is grateful he had at least his brother on his side because there’s no way he would have even survived for this long, even if his brother did leave him. 

No, Jisung shouldn’t think of it that way. He has no doubt that his brother’s funeral would have been his first, had he not gotten out when he did. Jisung only wishes he could have gone too, rather than getting stuck with their father in Malaysia.

It’s hard remembering what happens next, but Jisung all too clearly remembers his father appearing in front of him, face red with rage as his brother screams behind him. 

His father’s fingers wrap around his throat with an ease that shouldn’t fucking exist but it _does,_ pressing bruises and cutting off his air. Jisung splutters, choking and clawing at the fingers to try and get them off but only managing to leave angry, red lines behind. 

Distantly, he hears his phone clatter to the floor.

The cool metal of the wedding ring his father never wore before shocks him into kicking his legs out, twisting wildly as he’s lifted against the wall, anything to get out of the hold. Screaming isn’t even an option as his lungs feel like they’re capsizing, trying to take in air that just _won’t._

He chokes and sputters when his neck is finally released, dropping to his knees as he gasps and chokes and tries not to pass out when his vision flashes in and out. 

To this day, there are moments when he feels like he can’t breathe.

The seconds after that are fuzzy, too. His brother pulls their father back, giving Jisung space from where he’s still crowded against the wall at the landing of the stairs. 

They’re fighting and Jisung is still struggling to breathe. The cracks in his lungs feel like they’re splitting further and further apart. He worries about what will take root there, after this. What will sprout from the cracks? Take root and grow into something dark, something dirty.

Maybe it’s too late by now. Maybe he’s already past that point, it’s already grown into every fiber of his being and taken over. 

It’s only a matter of time before he becomes just like his father. 

Jisung and his brother were like two sides of the same coin. Two broken pieces, merged from their parents, that were too alike and yet _so different._ They could never fit together, but they understood.

His brother was like their father in physic only, towering and commandeering the attention of the room with his mere presence. But his personality was a contradiction, he was as mild-mannered as their mother and hated raising his voice at anyone.

Jisung was the opposite. He was on the slighter side, like their mother, but shares that burning anger with their father that he’s always hated.

It’s rare, but in the moments after it shows, Jisung hates himself more each time that lava-river of hatred erupts from him. 

It’s like magma, moving slow yet steady underneath the cracked plates of his earth. Pushing and pulling against itself until something forces it out, pressure building up until everything bursts forward.

Jisung doesn’t want the magma-hot anger, he wants soothing popsicles after spending too long in the studio with Chan and Changbin, he wants the plushies that clutter his chair that he can’t wait to tangle his fingers in, he wants to debut and continue to make music with his two best friends. 

He wants to be happy. 

It’s all he’s ever really wanted. 

“Jisung. Jisung? Can you hear me?”

Lifting his head up gives him an overwhelming sense of vertigo, even though he’s sitting down, and makes his head spin and throb alongside the ache in his throat. 

Static. Everything feels like static. 

“Jisung-ah?” His brother comes into focus, looking panicked and breathless, “Jisung, hide. Call someone. _Anyone._ Tell them to get you out of here.” He looks behind him at their father stirring, “Do you hear me? Go!”

It’s enough to spur Jisung off the steps, feeling his bones creak in tandem with the worn wood beneath him. Every part of his body pounds with an aching burn. His fingertips buzz when he grabs the phone left lying face-down on the ground next to him. 

His grip is almost so weak he drops it, but Chan’s face flashes bright behind his eyes and he holds on even tighter as he throws the door open.

It’s dark out.

Jisung had forgotten how late it was, how early? How dead the streets became at night. Lifeless, drifting, empty. His breaths echo as he dials Chan’s number out of memory, praying quietly to himself for Chan to pick up.

_Click._

_“Jisungie?”_

“Channie-hyu—NO! _Please!”_

_“Jisung? Jisung! Are you okay? Jisung?”_

Chan’s voice continued to bleed through the speaker, just like the blood dripping from Jisung’s temple onto the porch.

“Please,” he begs, “Don’t—“

He’s met with a punch to the side of the head, knocking his forehead and nose against the concrete below him as he begs and cries and pleads for his father to _stop._

He doesn’t. 

Again and again and _again._ Jisung screams and kicks and scrambles but each one is weaker and weaker until nothing comes out. 

He’s going to die here. 

Jisung is fourteen when his father beats him to near death in a house filled with empty memories of the family he never had. 

* * *

“—Sung? Jisung? Oh my god, oh my god. Chan, what the fuck do we _do?”_

Jisung groans, head swimming as the voices reverberate around the room and around his skull, “B-Bin’yung?”

The older boy scrambles closer than he was before, hands shaking over Jisung’s body like he’s both too afraid to touch him and wants to cover every inch of the bruises sprouting over his skin.

Red light. Blue light. Red light. Blue light. Pain. Pain. Pain.

Everything was rolling, passing in and out of his field of vision as vines of nausea creep up his throat, wrapping thick tendrils around his tongue and Changbin barely has enough time to turn him on his side before all the pain and worthlessness burst out from his lips and onto the ground.

 _“Shit._ Jisung-ah,” Changbin panics, “We’re gonna get you out, okay? You’re safe now, Sungie. You’re safe. You’re going to be safe.”

Jisung passes out the second he’s lifted from the concrete.

* * *

It takes a long time for Jisung to wake up. It’s impossible for him to tell just how long and he can’t even ask. His mind too muddled and the weight of his eyes pull him farther and farther into sleep until he slips once more. 

When he finally does wake again, the walls are as white as they are sterile, chemicals burning the inside of his nose with each beep of the machine next to him. 

“Jisungie!”

The door is closed, the windows with drawn curtains, and Jisung is laying in a hospital bed. 

His entire body feels stiff. Like a blanket of wet cement was left over his body and now he has to chip himself free, piece by piece. 

He still manages to turn his head to the left, just enough to watch as Changbin and Chan push their way into the room.

Just like that, a lightning-hot pain burns its way down his body, starting at his temples and coursing through his veins, turning his body into a circuit board.

Chan rushes to his bedside with a cry of his name that’s barely heard as the beeping of the machine grows louder and louder, the ache in his body growing worse and worse.

His lungs constrict, the pain flashes in his throat as he tries to scream. Chan keeps touching him. Jisung doesn’t want to be touched. Touch hurts. It hurts him and he doesn’t want it. 

“Sungie, please. Please, baby. I need you to calm down,” Chan pleads with him, but it’s barely heard over the frantic beeping of the heart monitor, “Please, it’s okay.”

It’s not okay. 

Nothing about this is okay.

Jisung continues to shake and scream and cry until he can’t anymore. It’s not fair. Nothing of what’s happened to him has been fair. It’s not fucking _fair._

Why him? Why is it always him?

“Channie-hyung?” Jisung asks once the fight has drained from his body, like air from a slashed tire, “What have I done to deserve this? I don’t—I don’t get it, hyung.”

“Oh, no. Jisungie,” Chan breathes, blinking back tears Jisung wishes he couldn’t see collecting in his eyes. “I promise you, nothing you could ever do would make you deserve this. I wish I could keep all the bad things in the world from you, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t keep you safe, and I’m so sorry Jisung-ah. I’m so, so, so sorry.”

Chan bows his head, letting his forehead fall against their joined hands with a shaky exhale. Sorrow rolls off of him in waves, flooding the room with its oppressive nature as Jisung watches Chan’s shoulders begin to shake, feels the droplets of remorse falling onto his skin before rolling down like he was made of wax.

He feels numb as he watches. Maybe Chan is crying enough for the both of them, because Jisung can’t find anything inside him now except resentment and resignation. Maybe he lost it all in his earlier breakdown.

Maybe it was lying at the base of the steps in his house. Or smeared across the concrete in front of it like his blood was. Jisung wonders if his face had any skin left on it at all, or was he just exposed for the world to see. To judge.

“Jisung?”

“Hm?” Numb. 

“Are—Are you okay?...”

“Am I okay?” Jisung laughs, “No, I’m not _fucking okay.”_

He hears Changbin gasp—Jisung had forgotten he was even in the room until this point—but the manic energy keeps building and building until all he can think about is how Changbin is huddled in himself in the corner of the room, tears trailing down his face as he sniffles into his knees.

Jisung thinks he might be sneering, but he also can’t feel most of the muscles pulling on his face so maybe he isn’t. He wants to be. He wants to be sneering at Changbin. He wants to let the resentment inside of him burst forward like a gun unloading. 

What right does Changbin have to be hiding from Jisung’s ugly truth when Jisung himself can’t even fucking escape it?

It’s not fair. 

“It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair, Sungie?” Chan asks him in a low voice. Gentle. Like he’s talking to a frightened animal.

Jisung is anything but frightened. 

“Get out.”

“W-What?”

“I said, _get out.”_

* * *

The second time he has to wear the suit, it’s another funeral. 

Changbin and Chan had offered to come with him, just like last time, but this time Jisung accepts. He’s got nothing left to lose, after all. 

And they’ve both seen him in the worst moments of his life, so he’s really got nothing left to hide.

His brother’s dead, just like their mother, and their father is facing jail time for enough charges to convict him for life. 

Jisung should be happy, but if happiness came from justice, less people would be as fucked up as they were. 

He considers himself pretty fucked up, to be honest. 

Jisung is fourteen and alone. 

Except, maybe he isn’t. 

Changbin flutters around nervously at his side, alternating between glancing curiously at the family Jisung doesn’t know and the boy himself.

Chan is a reassuring weight at his back, a steady hand on Jisung’s shoulder and careful nudges when he ignores the person offering their condolences. 

He has them. Both of them. 

Jisung doesn’t know if he could survive losing them too.

* * *

He does.

Lose them, that is.

No, he doesn’t.

But it feels like it.

Jisung barely has the foresight to stutter out an apology as he exits the studio, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow him. 

He shouldn’t have seen that. He shouldn’t have bore witness to something so private. Should’ve—Should’ve knocked. Should’ve _known._

It made so much sense.

Why Chan and Changbin have seemed so distant recently. Why they’ve been texting him less and less. Why they’ve been hanging out together more and more. Without him. 

Jisung’s face goes hot as he thinks about Changbin’s lithe form draped over Chan’s, like there was no place he belonged except in the eldest’s arms. He _looked_ like he belonged.

What did that feel like? Knowing you’ve found your place in the world? Safe and secure and not just waiting for the next thing to go wrong in life.

Jisung doesn’t know if he’s ever going to know what that feels like.

Changbin and Chan come up to him a few days later, with red faces and looking a little worse for wear. Changbin’s hair was a mess and Chan’s shirt wasn’t even correctly buttoned, but they both looked guilty enough that it didn’t matter.

“I’m sorry, Sungie,” Changbin mutters, kicking at the ground with the toe of his boot. “We should have told you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Jisung answers with an easy smile and tries to ignore the pieces chipping off his heart and shattering as they hit the floor. 

Maybe it was revenge. 

For how much Jisung tried to keep tucked away from them. He thought they knew too much already, they didn’t need to know any more. Too much. Too much. 

They’ll start keeping things from him too, now. Maybe they were even before this. Little things. Things that Jisung wouldn’t notice. 

Like when his notebook went missing last week. Changbin probably took it. 

Or when Chan promised to buy him a box of banana milk, but said they were out when he returned. He was probably just hiding the fact that he doesn’t want to spend money on Jisung. 

He’s too dirty to spend money on. Filthy. 

He wonders what it’s like to have somebody truly love him. 

Chan and Changbin understand. Jisung can see it in Changbin’s eyes when he looks at Chan, and he can hear it in Chan’s voice whenever he’s talking to—or about—the rapper. 

Jisung wonders if he’ll ever have somebody truly love him. 

Maybe he’s lost them, maybe he hasn’t, but Jisung smiles as bright as he can and assures them he’s happy for them. No, he doesn’t mind that they didn’t tell him. Yes, he’s okay. 

No, he doesn’t still want to die. 

He locks himself in the bathroom with the guise of showering and covers his arms in blood-red _love._

It’s harder to hide these days, surrounded by so many people.

Jisung is fifteen and sick of lying. 

* * *

Jisung doesn’t like Hyunjin. Changbin does. Chan does. Jisung really, really doesn’t. 

He’s arrogant, and snobby, and thinks he’s better than he actually is and Jisung doesn’t like him. 

Doesn’t like how well he dances, or how easy it is for him to get along with the other trainees. Even the _idols_ he’s managed to meet in passing seem charmed by him. 

Jisung hates him for it. 

Hyunjin is everything Jisung wishes he could be. Everything Jisung is not. 

They argue. Drop snide comments back and forth, on and on and on until someone steps in. 

The fighting never stops, even after Chan decides that he wants them both in a group. Together. 

Careless jabs turn to pointed insults and scathing looks. Hyunjin tells Jisung he’s ugly. That he can’t dance. Jisung retaliates by bringing up his shitty personality and his even shittier rapping. 

Felix avoids them both like the plague, Jeongin follows soon after, and Jisung watches as the foundation Chan worked so hard to build begins to crumble at his feet. 

Part of him wishes to be left behind in the rubble. 

JYP gives them an ultimatum. 

“Either you two work out your differences, or someone needs to step back. Imagine how bad a light you’d bring to your group, bruised and battered by one another’s hands. Is that what you really want?

“No, Sir.”

“Right. You have three weeks. Work it out.”

They don’t.

But they get better at hiding it. 

So they continue to fight. Jisung figures out all of Hyunjin’s insecurities to use against him, and only grins maniacally when Hyunjin’s tries to do the same.

He wants it to hurt.

 _He_ wants to hurt.

It all comes to a head when the show is announced, and debuting is something more than a wistful dream talked about when they need to remind themselves of their purpose. _Why_ they’re still here. 

Now Jisung isn’t the only one fighting to stay. It’s not just him and Chan and Changbin. Now there’s six others and they all have to learn to work together.

Jisung doesn’t know how well it’s working.

“Your view on life is all a bunch of bullshit,” Hyunjin grumbles one night, when the two of them are alone, left to clean up the practice room by Chan after yet another argument that made practicing nearly impossible. “Nobody is that happy all the time, and that’s why I think you’re fake.”

He can feel it building up, just like he always can. His hands start to shake and his face feels like it’s burning, burning, burning. He wants to fight Hyunjin. Again.

He wants to hit Hyunjin and he wants to _be_ hit by him. Jisung wants to feel the taller boy’s fist against his temple and he wants it to fucking _hurt._

Jisung’s gotten used to the taste of blood, but now that they’re in the public eye, Jisung can’t goad Hyunjin into connecting his knuckles with Jisung’s jaw just to feel something.

“Just because my outlook doesn’t match yours, doesn’t make either of us inherently wrong. We don’t agree because our experience brings us to opposing views. That’s life,” Jisung gives Hyunjin the brightest smile he can manage, even as malice drips from each word he says, “I’ve had things happen to me that made me realize that there was so much _bad_ in the world, but the dark parts only make the beautiful so much brighter.”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer him that time, but his grip on the broom he’s holding tightens when Jisung continues to speak.

“Happiness is always buried under something with a higher priority,” he starts, memory flashing through when everything was different, when everything was almost okay, “There’s always something more important. A goal that’s bigger than just you. I just want to live a life where that isn’t true, and my top priority is being happy.” 

Jisung pauses before turning towards the older boy. Hyunjin’s finally looking at him with something that isn't contempt.

“But, isn’t that what we all want? To be happy?” Jisung asks.

Hyunjin’s head gives a miniscule jerk down.

“Okay. So let’s be happy.”

The next thing that happens is Hyunjin trips over the wooden handle of the mop and directly into the bucket of water, soaking himself and the floor around him with it.

They both end up just staring at each other in a bewildered silence for several seconds.

“Aren’t dancers supposed to be...I don’t know. _Graceful?”_ Jisung mumbles.

It feels weird not letting that magma-hot anger run through the words like he’s used to, but Jisung can’t actually find it in himself right now.

Hyunjin gawks at him before the atmosphere is broken with several loud barks of laughter, and it’s not much longer until Jisung is joining him.

“God, even your _laugh_ is ugly.”

“At least I don’t smell like mop water.”

Jisung finds himself with another person in his corner after that. Hyunjin is actually a really good friend, someone older than him that Jisung doesn’t feel like he has to think of as such. 

They’re equals. 

* * *

Minho is someone that Jisung wants to impress, and that’s scary. Even just the thought of the older boy makes his heart start to beat wildly and his throat go dry.

It’s not like how Jisung feels about Changbin and Chan, wanting their approval, wanting them to be proud of him. 

Sure, he feels that with Minho too, but he wants Minho to think he’s something he isn’t. 

He wants Minho to think he’s worth something. 

“Good morning, Jisung-ah,” Minho says as he sits on the bench next to him, tray placed in front of them on the table. 

“Hi, hyung,” Jisung smiles, “How was your weekend?”

His heart stalls for a second as Minho’s eyes light up, Jisung hates himself for it because Minho is too bright for someone like him. 

“Great! I got to go home and see my cats,” he gushes, “And my parents. I really missed them. What about you?”

The smile almost falters but Jisung composes himself just fast enough, doesn’t think about the emancipation papers lying on his desk and shrugs back. 

“I just worked on some things with Channie-hyung.”

He thinks about how him and Changbin have seemed distant, almost, with him—Which is never a good thing because it leaves Jisung with far too much time with himself. 

He thinks about the bandages around his thighs and curls his fingers a little tighter into his sleeves. 

But he also thinks about Minho’s grin when he hears that. 

“Show me?”

Minho doesn’t quite understand him on the level Chan and Changbin do, but Jisung doesn’t mind that. It means he has a chance to reinvent himself. Minho doesn’t know anything other than Jisung’s favorite colors and he can’t tie his shoes properly, and he never has to know. 

“It amazes me how positive you are all the time,” Minho says.

It catches Jisung off guard. Sends images of pocket knives and piles of dusted plaster over tile through his mind. Positive? Him?

“I don’t know if I agree with that,” Jisung jokes, “I can be pretty negative sometimes. Just ask Hyunjin.”

Minho regards him with a look of contemplation. Like he doesn’t know if he can take Jisung’s joke at face value or not. Like he doesn’t know how to read Jisung.

“You fascinate me, Han Jisung.”

He says it with a twinkle in his eyes and a wanderlust tone to his voice, Jisung blushes at how much he likes hearing his name fall from Minho’s lips.

“You barely know me, hyung.”

Jisung feels how his smile strains. He should have just stopped. Shouldn’t have even directed the conversation to this point. 

“You’re right,” Minho hums, “But I like what I’ve found so far. I want to learn more. I want to know all your little quirks, your dreams, your fears.”

“I pour milk before cereal. We all share the same dream. And I’m not scared of anything.”

Minho’s face went from disgust, to pouty, to interested. “I know that’s not true,” he teases, leaning forward and into Jisung’s space, “You’re one of the jumpiest people I know. Everything scares you.”

Jisung’s face goes red, “Well, sorry I don’t like loud noises,” he grumbles, embarrassed at Minho pointing out one of his most obvious tells. 

You don’t get through the fuckshit he’s seen without some sort of souvenir trailing behind you. Jisung just happens to be a little jumpier than most.

Some days are worse than others. The days when he can still feel his father’s hand squeezing his throat, rings pinching the skin of his neck.

Was he traumatized? He’s never really thought about it. 

But he supposes it isn’t really normal to wake up shaking every morning because of your parents’ faces, or carve lines into their skin just to _feel_ something.

“Jisung?”

“What?” Jisung’s head snaps up to see Minho’s face directly in front of his, making him jump back with a wheezy exhale.

Minho almost laughs. Almost. Before he seems to realize Jisung’s breathing isn’t slowing down.

Why isn’t it stopping? Jisung can’t breathe.

He can feel his skin stretching. Tightening, twisting across his bones and pulling until he wants to cut it off. Split himself open. He can’t. Not here. Not now.

Not in front of Minho.

It’s 20 minutes to midnight and Jisung can hear the clock on the wall tickingtickingticking and the constant whir of the computer in front of him. Minho keeps constantly swimming in and out of his vision and Jisung wants nothing more than to push him away, but that would involve taking his hands away from his ears and bringing back the _tick tick tick_ of the clock. He hates it. Hates the energy buzzing through his body and how wrong the air feels around him, unable to free himself from the grip around his throat and the rings against his skin, digging in. Hurting him and—

“Jisung!”

He snaps back into his body.

Everything still feels wrong but it’s _his_ and he’s _here._ With Minho. Minho.

“Jisungie?” Minho breathes his name out like a prayer, voice shaking as much as his hands seemed to be.

Jisung blinks. Minho was sitting in front of him, nearly on top of him, holding Jisung’s wrists to keep his fingers from pulling his hair and digging into his scalp.

Jisung blinks again. His wrists itch and burn under Minho’s grip. He wonders if they’re bleeding. He hopes not.

“I—I’m sorry,” He says, unsure of what else he could possibly offer in that moment of _wrongness._ “I don’t know what just…happened.”

His own voice sounds thin, distant, like it’s coming from somewhere else in the room. From someone that’s not him. He tries to smile. Minho said he likes when he’s happy.

Jisung isn’t sure he really knows what happiness feels like.

Minho still looks terrified as he asks, “You never talk about…” And the understanding seems to flash across his face all at once, “Oh.”

Jisung breathes a laugh, but it doesn’t even sound happy to himself. It sounds hollow, so he tries harder. 

“There are some things you just don’t get over,” he says, trying to be casual but, if Minho’s eyes are any indication, he fails, “You learn to carry that weight with you.”

Minho’s fingers reach over to dance across the back of Jisung’s hand before turning it over and lightly tracing the small scar that craters his palm. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything, Jisung-ah,” Minho whispers to him, “Just know that I’m here for you.”

And he smiles. A soft, fond smile. 

Jisung thinks of the ghosts that haunt him on the daily, wonders if they can see him now, like this. _Happy._

Jisung wonders if he’s allowed to be happy.

They share a kiss in the deserted studio, pressed together from shoulder to thigh and heads turned in an angle that’s more awkward than anything, but Jisung couldn’t have imagined it any other way. 

Minho pulls away, just enough for Jisung to catch the panic and confusion that blows his eyes wide open. 

He stutters on the younger boy’s name for a moment as Jisung feels his world, everything he’s managed to rebuild from the ground up, crash back down around him.

“Hyung—”

Jisung cuts himself off, not quite knowing what to say. He had expected Minho to run off as soon as he tried to explain himself, like in every cliche drama he’s seen, but the dancer stays sitting there. Unmoving. 

Minho blinks at him a few times, mouth opening and closing before breaking into a grin. 

It hadn’t even been a _real_ kiss, not by many standards, but it’s the first real one that Jisung’s shared with anyone and he doesn’t want to forget the soft press of Minho’s lips against his own, even for just a second. 

Jisung wants to smile back, but his heart _thumps_ away in his ears and his joints lock up. “I shouldn’t have done that,” is what comes out instead.

He hates himself. He really, really does. For more reasons than he could even name, reasons not even Chan and Changbin know that he keeps locked behind the funeral suit in his closet. 

“I—I just had to know—”

“I liked it.”

Jisung might hate himself, but he could never hate Minho, so he leans forward to press another kiss against the dancer’s lips and prays this doesn’t fall apart like everything else in life. 

It’s their secret. 

But secrets are weapons, and it never takes long for someone to pull the trigger. 

Jisung just hadn’t expected it to be himself. 

* * *

Jisung wakes up abruptly, a scream dying in his throat because it’s always worse when he makes noise. Jisung’s learned to be quiet, these days. 

He clutches the blanket with trembling hands, the cloth acting as a cushion between his nails and palms, but there’s nothing stopping him from biting his lip bloody as he shakes and shakes and shakes.

His shirt clings uncomfortably to his skin. He wants it off. He wants it off. He wishes he could scratch his skin off with it, too tight. It’s too tight. He can’t breathe.

Panic sets it. Body twisting until his feet can find leverage on the wood of the floor. 

He blinks and he’s in the bathroom.

The mirror is not a kind thing to Jisung. He can see how his hair sits, plastered to his forehead, or the tears that continue to trail down reddened cheeks.

He sees phantom bruises covering his skin, painted across his neck like dirty watercolors. Fingerprints marking him like a crime scene. 

Jisung drops to his knees in front of the toilet, heaving into it with strength he didn’t know he still had. 

Someone knocks on the door while he’s brushing his teeth. 

It’s early, but not that early, and Jisung’s reflex reaction shouldn’t be to flinch back and hide his face, but it is. He’s glad no one is able to see it. Jisung doesn’t think there’s a correct answer to whatever questions they would ask. 

He finishes washing the toothpaste out of his mouth, using the plastic cup he’s only vaguely sure Jeongin put there, before opening the door. 

A sleepy Seungmin shuffles passed him with a muttered _‘thank you,’_ Jisung doesn’t miss the momentary glance sent his way after. 

He hopes the bathroom doesn’t smell too much like vomit. He’s not really in the mood to play it off as some sort of sickness. Too exhausted. 

Although, that would likely just lend aid to the argument. 

Living with eight other people kind of sucks. Jisung has grown used to the deafening presence of silence for hours at a time. He’s gone days with the only sound he hears is his own cries and the ringing in his ears each time his father’s boot makes contact with his temple.

“Jisung-hyung?” 

He jumps, startled at the sudden appearance of Seungmin back in the open doorway of the bathroom. 

_Oh,_ Jisung realizes he never moved, and now the younger boy is looking at him like he’s grown a second head. 

Although, that would probably be better than how Jisung looked at that moment. His shock-still posture would’ve given Seungmin enough time to catch the terror in his eyes, the remnants of the nightmare lingering in the tear tracks running down his face.

“Jisung-hyung?” Seungmin repeats, taking cautious steps forward. He stops after a few, looking as off-balance as Jisung felt. “Is everything…okay?” 

He should smile. Nod. It wouldn’t do much to lie about the nightmare, but he could at least tell Seungmin it was of something stupid, something ridiculous, that only his brain could think up. 

Just when he opens his mouth to spin a tale of sentient gummy bears, Seungmin clears his throat. 

“I want tea,” he deadpans, before clarifying at Jisung’s dumbfounded expression, “It’s 4 AM. We’ll have to be getting up soon anyway, so it would be too much work to try and fall back asleep now.”

Which, yeah, Jisung guesses that made sense. Chan would be making his usual rounds in about two hours, and this would give him the chance to have the bathroom to himself before the other’s woke up.

“What kind of tea?” He finds himself asking, head still angled down towards the floor.

Seungmin was wearing Hyunjin’s slippers. Cute. 

“I don’t know. The normal kind? I didn’t really know we had a selection,” Seungmin mumbles into one of the cabinets in their kitchen, “There’s this barley one, though. I think it’s Hyunjin’s, but I doubt he’d mind us using it, right?”

Jisung stands there, still slightly dumbfounded. He’s never _not_ liked Seungmin, not in the way he did Hyunjin, but he never would have called them close. They didn’t have the same connection Jisung shared with Chan and Changbin, and they probably never would.

But Jisung was learning that, just because a relationship was different than others, didn’t make it any less fulfilling. He’s grateful for someone like Seungmin in his life. Someone that doesn’t ask questions that Jisung can’t answer, doesn’t treat him any different after seeing his puffy eyes. Someone that makes tea for him at 4 in the morning, even though Jisung doesn’t think he’s ever even seen Seungmin drink tea before.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Go shower,” Seungmin tells him in his usual dry voice, “I’ll put something stupid on the TV for when you’re done. I think we have a few seasons of Doraemon on disc.”

“E-Excuse you,” Jisung sputters, “Doraemon is _art,_ thank you very much.”

Seungmin sends him a familiar, unimpressed look, but the softness that pulls at the corners of his eyes is different than what Jisung is used to. Fond, almost. Something he’s only ever seen on Seungmin’s face when Jeongin, as the only one younger than him, starts talking about whatever new game he’s been playing.

It’s…nice.

“Your hair looks stupid. Go shower or I’ll dump this tea on the DVD player.”

It’s a serious threat. Jisung doesn’t stick around much longer after, barely catching Seungmin’s grumbles of _‘who even owns a DVD player anymore?’_

The answer is Minho, of course it’s Minho, but Jisung is pretty sure he’s seen Seungmin use the thing more than the actual owner, so he doesn’t know where the younger thinks he’s coming from by insulting it.

When Jisung gets out of the shower, there’s a pair of sweats and a long-sleeve t-shirt left folded on top of the sink, still warm from the drier they must have been retrieved from. 

He’s not surprised to see Seungmin asleep on the couch, Doraemon playing quietly from the TV and casting a soft glow around the room. 

Jisung grabs the blanket from the foot of the couch and drapes it over the younger boy. 

“Sleep well, Seungmin-ah.”

* * *

“Sungie?”

The voice drifts in from the doorway. Jisung lifts his head up from his pillow and turns away from the wall, only to see Felix’s light eyes blinking at him in the dark.

He can practically feel the exhaustion rolling off the (barely) younger boy in waves, can see it in how it draws his shoulders forward. Jisung doesn’t like Felix looking so small.

“Jisungie?” He whispers again, but this time the tremble in his voice causes it to crack midway through Jisung’s name, “Can I—?”

“Course, Lix,” Jisung breathes, throwing his covers back just enough that the other boy gets the idea, silently padding across the floor in an effort to not wake the others. 

Jisung has half a mind to tell Felix they sleep like the dead, but he barely has the time to open his mouth before he has an armful of shaking Felix. 

“What’s wrong?”

Felix tries to inhale through the tears, Jisung can hear how it rattles around his chest and winces. He doesn’t like hearing Felix cry, he’s decided. 

“I miss them, S-Sungie,” Felix whispers.

Every muscle in Jisung’s body goes tense, but he forces himself to relax because Felix’s tears have not slowed in their descent. 

Usually, when homesick, Felix goes to Chan. They all tend to, but Felix and Chan share something _different_ than the others have. When they become Felix and _Chris._

He almost wants to ask. Why him? Why now? When Felix has never come to him for something like this? Jisung doesn’t have the chance to ask before Felix opens his mouth and another sob tumbles out, along with several words he has to struggle to make out.

Jisung felt it, the envy—disgusting and dark—bubbling up in his chest as he thinks about how _lucky_ Felix is, and he doesn’t even know it. He actually has parents to miss, which is what more than a lot of the kids at their company could say.

(Jisung takes note of all the ones that never leave during holidays. They all have the same empty, hopeless look in their eyes.)

“I-I know I usually go to…to Channie-hyung, b-but sometimes—sometimes even j-just hearing his _voice_ hurts, Ji. It _hurts_ and—and I don’t want it to.”

Oh. Yeah.

Jisung hadn’t even thought about that. Hearing it now, though, it made complete sense. If Felix was missing home, Jisung could see how it could be both comforting and upsetting to him to hear.

“It’s okay,” he tries, but the words come out stilted and unsure.

Comforting never really was his strong suit, Jisung’s never had a _reason_ to comfort someone other than himself.

Felix doesn’t seem to mind Jisung’s lack of certainty. He just holds tighter and cries harder, tighter and harder until the sobbing begins to slow into stuttery exhales breathed onto Jisung’s skin.

“I was happy? In a way. When I got kicked off,” Felix admits after he’s calmed down, only left with tears eyes and voice shaking in the dark, “I don’t think I’m cut out for this,” he admits, “I—I miss them so much, Ji.”

Jisung thought he could feel his heart breaking, pieces splintering off as Felix says the one thing Jisung could never bring himself to admit. Any resentment he felt was once again pushed away and tucked back into the rotted caverns behind his ribs.

Are any of them truly cut out for this? Jisung doesn’t regret his decision, not for a second. Why would he? It’s not like he has anything to go back to.

But it’s hard. It’s physically hard, it’s mentally hard, and Jisung has never felt more alone than when he’s with a group of kids his age talking about their perfect families and perfect friends and Jisung doesn’t fucking _have_ that.

He doesn’t have that, but maybe they don’t either.

His mother used to tell him, before she couldn’t stand the sight of his face, that he should always be kind, as kind as he can be because you could never know what was going on in someone’s life. Maybe a single smile could brighten their day.

_‘Your smile is like the sun, Jisungie. Please don’t let that burn out.’_

Jisung wonders what the others see when they look at him. Do they see a happy boy with a perfect life? Or did they see the broken, scarred mess he’s tried to hide away, kicked back under the suits and skeletons in his closet.

“If I could give you the world,” Jisung chokes out, “Please, know that I would. In a heartbeat, Lix.”

Felix shakes his head, “I don’t need the world,” he whispers the words against Jisung’s collarbone, “I already have everything I need. I might be missing my home in Australia, but I still have my home here. With you guys.”

_Home._

Jisung has thought many things. He’s thought about living, and he’s thought about dying. He’s thought about the family he’s lost, but now he’s thinking about the family he’s gained. 

Felix was right. 

“I’m sorry.”

Jisung’s eyebrow quirks up, “For what?”

“Crying about being homesick,” Felix sheepishly admits, scratching just below his ear, “Isn’t your family in Malaysia? You never talk about them…so I figured…”

Anxiety fills his stomach at the mention of _his_ family. None of the others have actually asked him about them before. Outside Chan and Changbin, not a single person has a damn clue, and Jisung intended to keep it that way. 

It was an unspoken rule, some kind of courtesy, that you don’t ask about someone’s family unless they directed the conversation there. The closest Jisung’s come to talking about anything had been with Minho, but he hasn’t brought the topic up since asking Jisung about his holiday that night in the studio. 

“Jisungie?”

His eyes squeeze shut, every once of him praying that Felix will just drop it—whatever he plans on asking. Jisung doesn’t have the answers to whatever question the other boy might give him.

“Do you ever get homesick?”

Jisung doesn’t know how to explain how hard it is to be homesick for a home that could never exist. One where his mother’s smiles weren’t broken, hollowed from the inside out and rotting. Where his father never laid his hands on them in ways that left bruises. Where his brother was still alive.

If Jisung had a home to miss, would he have ever left it? Would he have gone to that audition? Knowing that if he passed, he wouldn’t be able to see his family except on holidays? Would Jisung had ever met the others?

Would the rotted out cavity in his chest be filled with loneliness? Or would Jisung still hold that magma-hot hatred he wished he could remove, gut it out until he was just hollow. Like his mother.

Just like his mother.

* * *

“I’m going to support you through anything, Jeongin-ah. I’m your _hyung,_ it’s what I do.”

“But…” Jeongin scrubs at his eyes, harsh enough Jisung feels the need to grab the youngest’s hands in his own, “But what if I’m not _good enough_ for any of that? You all are so much more talented than I am. If you weren’t a rapper, would I even be here?”

Jisung blinks in confusion, “What are you saying?”

“I mean…You’re good enough to hold your own as a vocalist, even against Chan-hyung and Seungmin-hyung. _You_ were the one picked to sing that note in Hellevator because you were the only one that could actually hit it. How could I even hope to compare? I was going to be the next person kicked off. What good am—“

“Jeongin, shut up.”

The maknae gawks at him, dumbfounded that Jisung could ever, _would_ ever, tell him to shut up. 

“If you say anything bad about your voice again, I’m going to eat all of your nice sweaters. All of them,” Jisung tells him. “And if you want to talk about that stupid survival show, which I’m pretty sure was pre-decided from the start, then what about Felix and Minho-hyung? They _actually_ got kicked off, are you saying they’re not good enough?”

“No!” Jeongin startles,“Of course not! But they were dancers, and—and JYP PD-nim only ever criticized them on their singing or rapping. I went in as a singer, but if I suck at that, and I suck at dancing, then what good _am_ I?” He sinks his head into his hands with a groan, “I suck.”

“Dummy, you don’t suck,” Jisung laughs as he shakes Jeongin by his shoulders, “You’re still young, okay? And you’re growing into your voice. Just because Seungminnie and the others have had more vocal training, doesn’t mean you suck. It means you have more room for improvement,” Jisung tries to explain. He hopes the younger boy believes what he’s saying, since it _was_ the truth, after all. 

“You really think so?” Jeongin asks after a short pause, finally lifting his head up to look at Jisung with a new twinkle in his eye, “You don’t think I’m bad?”

“Of course not,” Jisung affirms, “You’re growing into your voice. This is only the beginning, Innie.”

It was only the beginning for many of them, but it was a new beginning for Jisung. A start-line for a new race, one where he isn't being dragged down by the people around him.

Jeongin grins at him, braces glinting in the light of the studio, and Jisung can’t help but smile back at him. 

He’s young. Jeongin isn’t even half a year younger, but to Jisung it feels like a world between them. The maknae still has that naivety shining in his eyes, something Jisung hasn’t seen reflected back in the mirror for years.

Jeongin hasn’t ever had a reason for that innocence to be lost. He’s lived a happy life. Surrounded by a loving, supportive family. He has everything Jisung’s ever wanted, yet is never going to have.

Not with the emancipation papers signed and on their way to the court. 

The rot builds. Jisung can feel it. Emanating from within. It’s only going to result in the decay spreading, chipping away from the accumulation of rot in his chest. Jisung doesn’t know what else he can offer of himself, if only to keep that feeling tucked away in the dark parts of his mind.

Although, he doesn’t know quite where the dark parts end, _if_ they end. Maybe that’s all that’s left of him, anymore.

“Sungie-hyung?”

Jeongin sounds unsure again. Jisung hates himself.

Hates himself for ever thinking ill thoughts of Jeongin, just because he has a normal family, and a normal life, and normal insecurities. It’s not fair. It’s not fair of Jisung to be this way.

He’s the hyung. The elder. His job to care for and protect for the three younger than him. That’s Jisung’s job. That’s what he needs to do, but _can’t._

Jisung wishes he could be ready to give himself at any point. Remake himself to better protect the boy in front of him, and save him for losing that innocence Jisung can’t help but be grossly envious of.

“Do you really think everything’s gonna work out?”

“Yeah, Innie. I do.”

It has to.

Jisung won’t have anything else to fall back on, so he tangles his fingers into the _hope_ shining in Jeongin’s eyes, and selfishly tries to keep some for himself.

He’s afraid.

He’s afraid of the treacherous feeling that settles in his chest, something that might just be _happiness,_ covering the rot with delusions and dreams. It brings with it the fear of having something to lose, and while he wants to be ready to give everything—every bit of himself—away, he desperately hopes he won’t have to.

Jisung doesn’t know how much more he could take losing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!! i appreciate any and all comments ;-;


	2. found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It gets worse before it gets better. It always does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOF sorry this took so long and is kinda shitty?? i meant to have this up early december but ALAS, work has been killing me ;-;
> 
> its 3am blame all mistakes i missed on that thanks

The morning starts like any other.

Jisung wakes up shaking, his hands fisted in the sheets as sweat drips down his back. He feels oddly vulnerable in the dark of his room, he always feels vulnerable in the dark these days.

Life isn’t what it used to be. 

Jisung is seventeen and has never felt so empty before, which was strange, considering he’s also never felt so free. It’s like his entire world has shifted on its axis, giving him a new viewpoint of life, but the colors around him are still dull and empty-feeling.

It was like everything hit him all at once, knocking him over time and time again and never giving him the chance to regain his footing. Jisung doesn’t have a mother. He doesn’t have his brother. He doesn’t even have a father—at least, not one that he wanted. Jisung was more alone than he’s ever been before, even surrounded by Felix’s gentle arms, or the sound of Hyunjin’s loud laughter.

Jisung feels like there’s a hole in his chest. Wide and gaping and empty, like someone had reached their hand in and pulled out all signs of life. Gone was the anger, gone was the rot, but so were the blossoms of hope that had just started taking root there. They were all gone, and there’s nothing Jisung could do about it.

He wants to feel something. Anything. 

The others were worried, that was easy to see, especially now that their ‘Nine or None’ no longer held true. Jisung could feel himself slipping back through the cracks as everything piled on around him.

Every time Chan asks if he’s alright, Jisung lies. He doubts Chan believes a word of it, but Jisung would rather be a liar than a burden. What’s one more lie when his whole personality seems to be built off of fake smiles and white-lies?

Sometimes, Jisung believes it. Believes the lies he tells the others, the company, the fans. Believes that he’s happy. That he wasn’t drowning under the weight of his own falsehoods and everything is okay.

Until he remembers that everything is a fabrication, and Jisung doesn’t know anything about himself. There was no more hope. No more rot. No more strings holding his broken body up.

So Jisung goes to sleep every night, waiting to feel the hands on his throat and the pinch of a metal ring cutting into his skin. He lays down every night, wishing for just a few hours of sleep where he wasn’t stuck reliving his own personal hell.

His birthday is in a week. Jisung never thought he’d make it this far. Jisung is going to be eighteen and still alive.

* * *

“Happy Birthday, Jisung-ah!”

Jisung smiles, letting Felix gently place a party hat over the mess of hair atop his head. He doesn’t try to say it back to Felix, not this year, because he knows from previous experiences that Felix will only cover his mouth and tell him that _‘it’s not time yet,’_ in that heavy accent of his.

“Thank you, Lixie,” is all he says back. He closes his eyes, barely leaning into the small hands that stay cupping his face. Jisung is tired. He’s always tired, these days, but he’s still alive. Jisung is tired but he’s alive and that’s all that matters right now. 

“How does being eighteen feel?” Jeongin asks, leaning forward with wide and curious eyes.

 _‘It’s tiring, knowing I’ve been alive for so long,’_ Jisung thinks, but he doesn’t let the smile slip from his face as he ruffles the youngest’s hair, “It’s…unbelievable, Innie.”

Jisung doesn’t elaborate, and he ignores the puzzled looks he’s receiving from Chan and Changbin. They don’t understand, but they do. More than anyone in Jisung’s life ever has, and that scares him. They understand that Jisung never thought he could ever make it this far in life, not when he was so sure life would never let him get here, but Jisung was once again standing on shaky legs and unstable, unknown ground.

Jisung is eighteen now. He’s eighteen and so, so unsure.

* * *

Jisung has been silent the entire fansign. The whole evening, really.

People are expecting him to talk, sing, smile, laugh. They’re expecting him to act normal, act like the others around him are.

Happy. They’re all expecting him to act happy.

Jisung doesn’t know how he can pretend to be happy when his body aches with every breath he takes. When just talking feels like torture, words catching in his throat and choking him.

There’s too many people in the room. Too many people expecting too much of him, too much that Jisung doesn’t have left to give. 

He wonders what they see in him. The fans. He wonders if they look at him and think _inspiration,_ or if they look at him and taste disgust on their tongues. It’s bittersweet, he decides. The one thing that keeps him going is also dragging him down.

He wants to dig his fingers in to stop the descent. Jisung would be willing to hold on until his fingers were raw and his nail beds bloody, but his hands don’t seem willing to move when he tells them to.

The table they were sitting at was covered in miscellaneous gifts fans left, gifts they weren’t allowed to keep, but Jisung usually found himself appreciating each one more than the last. Except his feelings of gratitude weren’t coming forward today. Instead, he only feels contempt for each stuffed toy. 

Jisung no longer wants to be here, in any capacity. He watches as Hyunjin laughs at Seungmin’s attempt to startle Felix on the other side of the stage, Jeongin joins Felix’s side a few seconds later, and Jisung can’t help but dread the impending civil war it’s going to cause.

Part of Jisung burns with jealousy for not being the one to make them laugh like that, but the other parts of him are frozen in a blank apathy, filling in the gaps that weren’t taken up by disgusting resentment.

Jisung just wants to be happy, like the rest of them. 

He honestly doesn’t remember the last time he’s laughed like that. It had to have been weeks, at this point. Maybe months. Maybe years. Maybe never. Jisung doesn’t know anymore.

His eyes dart from member to member, scrutinizing the people around him. He never understood how at ease they were with one another, simply enjoying being in the presence of each other. 

Jisung finds himself wishing he wasn’t so broken.

Chan had asked him if he was okay. Jisung brushed him off, but then Jeongin had asked him after that, with his eyes full of hope and fear of rejection and Jisung couldn’t do it.

So he told them he wasn’t feeling completely there, and it wasn’t a lie, Jisung was feeling rather…untethered, but that was nothing compared to how he feels now.

Now, Jisung feels like any tethers that were holding him down have finally snapped, and he’s left with nothing to keep himself grounded.

After falling on every detail in the room he could find that wasn’t someone’s eyes, Jisung's gaze finally focuses on the one person he wanted nothing more than to avoid. 

Minho stands center-stage, right where he belongs, laughing at something Chan must have said next to him, his head tipped backward and his laughter making the room vibrate with the force of it.

Minho, too bright and too lively for Jisung to taint. Minho, who deserves far greater than what Jisung could ever hope to give him. Minho, who loves wholly and freely, beyond any capacity Jisung could dream of.

They haven’t talked about that kiss. They haven’t had reason to talk about the kiss. Jisung wonders if it meant the same to Minho that it did to him, or if Minho kisses all his close friends like that. 

None of them are paying him any mind, but Jisung knows if he lifts his head up, he would be faced with the reality of hundreds of prying eyes watching his every move. The thought is enough to make his breath hitch as some voice in the back of his head screams at him to get out of there. He knows he should tell someone, make up some excuse about not feeling well, but it’s already too much for him to keep himself from falling into hysterics right at the table.

Too many eyes on him and none of the ones he needed at that moment. 

_Something is wrong. He feels wrong. Raw and painful. Bitter, blackened smoke turns his lungs dark, rattles through his chest. It’s been festering for years, rotting him from the inside out._

_He spits. Blood splatters across the pavement like paint. Jisung’s ears ring._

“I—I need to go,” Jisung hears himself say, but the words take a second to register even for him as he stands up, the movement so sudden it knocks the chair he was sitting on back. The laughter stops, everyone now staring at him in silence. 

_“Please,” he begs, “Don’t—”_

Jisung stares at the ground as he stumbles his way to the edge of the stage. Something hurts. The steps are in front of him, so he descends as fast as his shaking legs will allow him before they give out completely, leaving him collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

His fingers desperately cling to the railing, the cold metal biting his skin as he leans his forehead against it, trembling at the sharpness of the metal that cuts into his neck.

Something is different. Jisung finds it hard to pinpoint exactly, but he imagines it’s normal to feel this way when you take a child and rip away everything they’ve ever held close, forcing them to become someone else. Jisung’s never felt so empty in his life.

He lowers his hands. He tastes blood.

Jisung just wants to be normal. 

But this is his normal. 

That brief lapse of hope had done nothing but taint him forever. Now, without the hope, Jisung feels like an integral piece of himself is missing. The feeling was addicting, and had fallen upon Jisung like an illness.

_He feels it coming. It doesn’t matter that there’s blood dripping down into his eyes, Jisung has been kicked so many times in his life that he knows when to expect it, knows exactly where it’s going to hit. He falls backward, chest and arms glowing bright with pain as he’s sent back into the wall._

Jisung blacks out.

* * *

You can find a child that’s lost, and scared, and alone, and give him a place to belong—can give him love and affection and anything he’s ever wanted in life and maybe he can be happy, but if you find a child like Jisung, a child that’s been rotting on the inside for years. Empty and meaningless for so long that just belonging will never be enough. Love will never be enough.

Jisung will never be enough.

Family to him isn’t what it is to the others. It isn’t sweet words and gentle embraces, it’s yellow bruises and red ink bleeding onto his skin. That’s what family has always been to Jisung.

But now, where he sits with 7 other boys crowding around him, anxiousness rolling off them in waves as they wait for Jisung to finally start talking. To explain what had happened at the fansign. To explain something that Jisung will never be able to put into words.

“Is everyone happy except me?” Jisung asks—and his voice sounds hollow and empty and _bitter._ So, so bitter. “Or am I just the only one who doesn’t know how to hide it yet?” 

Chan’s eyes grow wide, mouth opening and closing with words that don’t seem to want to leave his lips.

Surprisingly—or, maybe not—it’s Seungmin that manages to speak up first.

“You know that we love you, right?”

He feels something inside himself snap. 

_Love._

Love is broken bones and rage-stained words. 

Jisung laughs.

It bubbles forward in his chest, he can feel it pushing against his rib cage, beating heavily against the bones before clawing its way up his throat as it tumbles out of his mouth.

“Jisung?” Hyunjin mumbles, “Why are you…”

“Laughing? Why am I laughing?” Jisung asks, incredulous, “I’m laughing because I don’t know what else to _do,_ Hyunjin. I’m laughing because I don’t want to think about the fact that I constantly feel my father’s hands around my neck, squeezing until I can’t fucking breathe anymore. I’m laughing because I need to remind myself that my ribs aren’t always bruised.”

He doesn’t look up to see all of the emotions leveled on him. He doesn’t want the disgust, or the pity, or the confusion he knows is undoubtedly painted across their faces.

And then it hits him, all at once. That loaded gun finally goes off, and Jisung swears he can feel the bullet tearing through his insides. 

“Sung-ah—”

“I think I want to die again?” He rushes out, squeezing his eyes shut as his throat tightens up, “I—I don’t know. I don’t know. Everything was okay, everything was fine and then it wasn’t? Like, now I don’t know, but I don’t know what I don’t know? Everything feels like it’s been turned on its head and I don’t know which way is even up anymore. Every day I have to wake up and pretend like I didn’t just cry myself to sleep the night before, and I have to plaster a smile on my face and act like nothing's wrong. Like I don’t want to—”

Jisung stops himself before spilling everything, even though he can feel the words sitting on his tongue, ready to jump out the second he opens his mouth.

_‘Like I don’t want to kill myself.’_

Oh. 

Jisung looks up, hesitantly, not ready to face the others but not wanting to not _know_ what they’re thinking.

“Jisung,” Chan starts again, like he’s talking to a scared child.

And that’s exactly how Jisung feels. Like a scared child. That’s what he is. That’s what he’s always going to be. 

“Why didn’t you tell us you’re struggling again, baby?”

Because he’s never _not_ struggling. It’s all he’s ever known.

Felix is crying. Hyunjin is crying. Jeongin and Seungmin look confused. Minho won’t take his eyes off of Jisung. Chan and Changbin already know. They already know. They’ve seen it. They’ve seen Jisung at his lowest, and they’ve helped lift him back up.

“I—” Jisung blinks, swallowing down the lump that settled in his throat, “I couldn’t care less if I died right now, because I’m not living for myself. I’m living for you. I’m living for you, because I don’t want to break your hearts. And—And I—I know that’s not right.”

He chances a glance up, eyes locking with Chan’s.

“I know that’s not good, but it has to be—it has to be enough.”

It has to be enough, but Jisung knows it’s not.

“Because it’s all I’ve got, right now. It’s all I’ve got.”

Minho is the first to move.

With one single, heaving breath, Minho lunges off the couch and tackles Jisung around the waist, knocking them both to the floor in a pile of limbs. He sobs into Jisung’s neck, once, twice, a third time, before pulling back. Three more seconds pass before Minho’s face scrunches up again, “That just—” he sobs out, burying his face back into Jisung’s chest as he continues to wail, “That just means—That just means we’ll have to h-help you—find—find your _own_ reason to live, r-right?”

If you asked Jisung years ago, when he was fourteen and everything truly began crumbling around him, if he would ever be happy again, he would have said ‘no.’

And he would have meant it. 

“I’d like that, hyung,” Jisung whispers, wrapping his arms around Minho’s shaking body, “I’m—I’m really thankful for you. All of you. I never—I never would have…thought…I didn’t think I’d even make it this long,” he sniffles, and in seconds, Felix is plastered against his back, “I got used to the word ‘loneliness,’ and I accepted that. That’s all I would ever be. Lonely, and scared, and rotted from the inside out.

“I never planned on being happy, because happiness always seemed like it was buried under something more important, like surviving, until just surviving wasn’t something I cared about anymore. And, at that point, if I didn’t even want to do that, then trying to be happy was pointless,” Jisung continues, looking down at his hands and trying not to see metal rings around his fingers, trying not to see age-worn skin and prominent veins, trying not to see the hands of his father, “I wasn’t really living. I was—I was just…waiting to die.”

Minho’s arms are tight around him, almost too tight, but they keep Jisung aware that he’s still there, in the messy living-room of their dorm, and not bleeding onto the concrete in front of his mother’s house. His mother’s house, where that suit might still be hanging in the closet, waiting for Jisung to return and fit himself into it. Maybe for his own funeral, this time.

Jisung blinks, and the closet is no longer in front of him. The bloodstains on the floor are gone. Minho’s arms stay around him. Jisung doesn’t want Minho to have to go to his funeral. Or Chan, or Changbin, or any of the others. He can’t die, because he knows it will make them sad.

He wonders if that truly is enough.

It has to be. 

* * *

_It burns._

_“You’re—You’re just like him!”_

**_Smack._ **

_Jisung screams, trying to yank his arm away. He can’t. She doesn’t let go. His hand throbs. Jisung can’t breathe. She won’t let go._

_Jisung wants her to let go, but she continues yelling. He’s just like his father. He’s going to hurt her. He already has. He’s just like his father._

_It burns._

Jisung wakes up screaming.

“Jisung?”

He can’t breathe. It burns. 

“Jisungie. Jisungie. I need you to breathe, baby. I need you to calm down before you hurt yourself.”

Hands grasp his arms, holding him in place and Jisung tries to pull away. Tries to free himself from the hold but he can’t. 

“P-Please,” he gasps, sobs choking him as he continues to struggle, “Not again. Please, p-please. I’ll be go-od. Promise—I promise.”

Jisung’s hands shake. They shake, fingers latching onto the fabric that they come in contact with and Jisung _trembles_ against the person holding him. 

It’s not his mother, Jisung realizes. It’s not his mother, and it’s not Minho, and Jisung expects to feel disappointment at that second thought, but it never comes. Not when Hyunjin’s—Jisung can tell by the faint remnants of the older boy’s cologne that fog his senses—arms around him are strong and warm and safe. Not when the dancer whispers soothing words to ease Jisung from his frazzled state; talks of his dog back home, confessions of the once-mysterious boy, memories of his and Jisung’s time together as trainees. Jisung can’t be disappointed—not when Hyunjin lets Jisung take and take and _take._

Jisung doesn’t know what he can offer to give in return.

“Four years ago,” Jisung starts, after the shaking has calmed a bit and the tears finally stop, his voice broken and thin and trembling nearly as much as he was, “My mother put her cigarette out on my skin.”

He can’t bring himself to say more, but he doesn’t think he has to. Hyunjin’s body tenses but he never stops whispering reassurances to Jisung as he holds him close. 

If you had told Jisung, when he was fifteen and alone and waiting to die, that Hwang Hyunjin would be the one that could comfort him with little more than a hug and some words, Jisung would have snorted in your face and told you to _fuck off._

But here he is, with Hyunjin’s arms around his shaking body and his thin tank-top wound tight in the rapper’s fingers, and Jisung couldn’t think of anything he’d rather have.

“It’s better now, right?” Hyunjin asks. He doesn’t apologize, or ask _why_ she had done it, and for that, Jisung is grateful. 

“It’s better now.”

Jisung still dreams of his mother pressing her lit cigarette into his skin, of the rings that adorned his father’s fingers digging into his neck, of the scratched _love_ that marred that old, worn wall of his bathroom.

Jisung still sees each of these things when he closes his eyes at night, but he knows, now, that when he opens his eyes in the morning— 

It will be to Minho’s mischievous gaze. Hyunjin’s safe arms. Chan’s fond smiles. 

Jisung isn’t alone anymore. It’s taken him years to realize, to feel it for himself, but Jisung has people that care for him now, and that’s more than he’d ever thought he could have.

* * *

_‘I think I want to die again.”_

Jisung doesn’t know why he said that. Why he had admitted that. He doesn’t know why he ever whispered those words. If he had never said them, Chan wouldn’t be as stressed as he was. Jisung was burdensome, he was a chore. Chan didn’t need that. None of them do. 

They wouldn’t have to stop after every song to look to him, making sure he was still standing and not dangerously swaying from exhaustion. They wouldn’t have to form a shield around him—like they are now—to protect him from _fans,_ just because Jisung was incapable of catching his breath and controlling the hammering of his heart. 

He looks down to check the time on his watch, pointedly ignoring how his hands shake as the screams ring in his ears. 

They were going to be late. The swarm of people wouldn’t part, and no matter how much they shoved, how much they shouldered their way through, they were going to be late. They would miss their flight, and be stuck here, in the winter. By the time they get another flight, it wouldn’t even matter because they’d end up late to their own performance. Which would make them lose fans, and would garner bad attention. 

Bile rises in his throat. Jisung swallows. His grip on Hyunjin’s hand must tighten, because the taller boy looks to him for barely a second before pulling Jisung closer. 

No. Jisung remembers. He remembers now. It’s not a performance, they’re heading home. They’re not boarding a flight, they’re exiting one. That’s why Jisung’s hips hurt and legs feel unsteady. 

He remembers the plane ride. He remembers Jeongin drooling on his shoulder. Right? Or is he making that all up, right now? 

“Hyunjin?”

“Hm?”

“Where…Where are we going?”

Hyunjin turns to him once more, confusion and apprehension clear on his face, “What do you mean, Sungie? We’re going home? Why, did you forget something?”

Jisung feels his head shake, he’s just about to look up to meet Hyunjin’s gaze when a hand grips the back of his shirt, yanking him away from the older boy and back. 

He trips over his own feet, falling onto the hard ground with a loud _smack_ of his palms against the linoleum. Someone shouts his name, but before Jisung can answer, more hands fly at his face. Gripping, pulling, tugging him around. 

He feels his head hit the ground _(concrete—his blood staining the concrete red, red, red)_ as his vision swims in, out, in, out. Dizzy. Jisung feels dizzy. There are too many hands on him. Too many hands pulling, yanking, tugging. Jisung wants them to stop. He wishes he could tell them to stop.

Jisung stumbles over himself trying to get up, before a hand around his neck makes his arms shake too much to even hold himself, and lands heavily against his left shoulder. It hurts, but it’s not enough to cut through the haze of panic. It’s not enough to pull Jisung away from the loud screams of his name, or the harsh metal of the rings that cut into his neck.

He hates it. He hates it. He hates the yelling and the hands and the dizziness and the nausea that threatens to make him sick in front of the too-many people crowding around him.

His breathing won’t slow down. Jisung feels like his lungs are going to burst, like his heart is trying to beat out of his chest, like his ribcage is going to break from the pressure. He grits his teeth, curling up tighter, tighter, tighter, trying to get away. He wants to get away. He wants them to go _away._

“Jisung!”

Someone calls for him, but Jisung curls up tighter and presses his sore palms over his ears. He wants to go home. He wants to go home. He’s scared, and shaking, and he doesn’t want to be as scared of the fans as he is, but the hands on his shoulders and fingers tugging at his jacket make him want to hide away and never show himself again.

To fear the one and only thing in the world that has given his existence the closest thing to _meaning_ it’s ever had. Pathetic. Jisung is pathetic. Jisung is pathetic, but he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t deserve them, but without them, Jisung is nothing. 

Another hand pulls at him. Jisung finally manages to get his feet on the ground. He runs.

He runs, ripping past the hands and the yells and the too-many people. He runs, his steps sluggish and heavy but still too frantic for him to stop now. He just knows he needs to get away. Away from the hands and the yelling and the too-many people that expect too much from him.

Too much that Jisung doesn’t have left to give.

_Useless. Useless. Useless._

His mind chants louder and louder with every breath he can’t seem to take, more forceful with every stutter of his heart. Jisung can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t remember where he is or why he’s there. Jisung doesn’t know where he’s going. Jisung doesn’t _know._

Jisung can’t hear anything over the static in his ears and the angry words that pierce it and leave him bleeding onto the concrete. The words are loud and heavy and growing in volume, writhing inside him and filling that hole in his chest until it’s too massive of a weight and Jisung feels himself shutting down.

It’s deafening. Jisung can feel it overpowering him one motor skill at a time, until he can’t even keep himself going as he crashes to the ground. His nerves barely send any signal of pain back, but he tastes blood in his mouth after biting down on his tongue and he collapses into himself.

He’s bleeding. Crimson drips from his lips from where he pants, on his hands and knees, staring down as the concrete is painted dark, dark, dark red. 

His knees tingle. His palms sting. He scraped them falling, blood drips from the cuts to join the small puddle below him. Red. Drops of red.

Red. Red. Red.

In front of him. More than a drop. Red in the form of scuffed converse, Jisung lifts his head as the blood continues to drip and the red bleeds into his vision even further when he sees Minho’s hoodie. Red. Like Jisung’s blood that stains the concrete and his hands and his teeth.

“Sungie,” Minho breathes, dropping to his knees hard enough in front of Jisung that they hit with an audible _smack,_ “Jesus, baby. We—We’ve been looking for you everywhere. God, we were so worried. _I_ was so worried, Jisung. I—I need to call one of the others.”

Blood. Red. Blood. 

“You’re safe now, Sungie.”

_‘You’re safe now, Sungie. You’re safe. You’re going to be safe.’_

Jisung blacks out.

Except—he doesn’t.

He doesn’t get the chance to, because Minho is pushing his way into Jisung’s space, pulling Jisung against his chest, holding him as he gasps for air and the red surrounds him fully. 

_“Hyung.”_

Jisung didn’t plan on saying anything. His mind had failed to give him enough warning that he was going to speak, so the word is choked and breathy and he doesn’t know if Minho even hears it. That is, he doesn’t know until Minho’s arms tighten around his shoulders and he hears an equally-choked inhale come from above him.

He can’t do anything but tighten his fingers in Minho’s red hoodie and try to breathe past the deafening sound of blood rushing in his ears. Forcing himself to focus. On anything. On the intertwining colors of Minho’s bracelet— _red, black, white, red, black, white, red—_ Jisung tries to focus. Minho’s chest is heaving. He probably ran. Jisung has people that are willing to run after him, not to chase him, not like the voices and the hands and the cold, metal rings that dig into his skin and make him bleed red.

“Jisungie, please look at me.”

Jisung can’t do anything but numbly repeat himself, “Hyung?” And his voice shakes, even more, the second time. He forces himself to look. To find Minho’s eyes. Past the red of his hoodie. Past the red of Jisung’s blood that stains the concrete. The blood that Jisung can taste in his mouth.

“C’mon, baby. Look at me.”

But Jisung is looking. He’s looking at Minho. Looking at the mole on Minho’s nose. He’s looking at Minho and he can see his lips move but the words still sound warped and stretched.

“Focus, Sungie, I need to make sure you’re okay.”

Focus. He said focus that time. Jisung forces his eyes to drag another inch up Minho’s face, past the mole on his nose and to the one at the corner of his eye.

Jisung can’t feel his fingers, but he’s looking into Minho’s eyes and the current of panic he was swimming in seems to calm.

“God, Jisung. I was so worried, baby,” Minho continues to repeat, brushing Jisung’s hair away from his forehead to press his lips there, “I’m so happy you’re safe. You were—You were separated and Hyunjin was yelling something and Channie-hyung started panicking, but you’re okay. You’re okay, you’re safe. We found you. We’ll always find you.”

Jisung has people that are willing to fight for him. That are willing to search for him. It doesn’t matter how lost Jisung may find himself, if Minho is there to find him and bring him home.

“M’okay,” Jisung assures, _‘Now that I’m not alone, anymore,’_ he doesn’t say.

“You’re okay,” Minho sighs, pressing his forehead against Jisung’s and letting out a small, relieved breath. “You’re okay, Jisung-ah. Hyung’s with you.”

Jisung’s breathing had slowed from its frantic, panic-stricken pace, now heavy and slow and matching Minho’s. His body continues to shake in the elder’s arms, but Jisung finds that he doesn’t mind. Minho’s arms are safe and warm and Jisung doesn’t feel like he’s going to shake out of his skin when they’re wrapped around him.

“The others are on the way, baby,” Minho tells him, and Jisung feels the haze creeping back over him like a fog, “We’re gonna get you home.”

 _Home._ Jisung is going home. He’s going home, and he trusts Minho to get him there.

Jisung lets himself be pulled into Hyunjin’s arms after the dancing finally reaches them, dropping to his knees in much the same fashion Minho had, with tears rolling down his cheeks and hands shaking as he pulls Jisung in close.

Jisung doesn’t try to stop the sobs from ripping through his chest when he feels Hyunjin’s heartbeat against his temple. Doesn’t struggle or try to pull away when the dancer stands with Jisung folded into his arms. He doesn’t look up to see where they’re going. He doesn’t think about how the yelling has stopped and the only thing he can hear is Chan’s worried voice. Jisung doesn’t do anything but cry. 

“I—M’sorry,” Jisung sniffles, trying to avoid getting any more snot and tears on Hyunjin’s skin than he likely already has. “Sorry. Sh-Shouldn’t ‘ave run ‘way. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Chan gently admonishes him, reaching a hand up to place it on Jisung’s head, “I should’ve been watching out for you better, Jisungie. I shouldn’t have let them lay a hand on you.” His own hand falls away as he says that, Jisung wearily closes his eyes as they continue walking.

Chan’s tense shoulders and teary eyes are the last things he remembers seeing.

* * *

This is the part of the story where all of the friends and family (or in Jisung’s case, just _friends)_ gather together to host an intervention for the emotionally-troubled protagonist. Jisung’s seen enough dramas to know this is how it happens, with everyone gathered around him, their gazes cast downward but ears trained and waiting on the first word that will fall out of his mouth.

But, Jisung supposes, he’d rather be that than be the antagonist in someone else’s story.

“Jisung, I really do think this is something you should bring up to the company,” Chan squeezes his hand, his voice soft and his eyes softer, “They’re going to need to make a statement about what happened, so I think it would be best to sort out what exactly you want to be left out, or—”

“I think I want to see someone,” Jisung rushes out, cutting Chan off. He’s just about to apologize before he notices the bright, hopeful look in Chan’s eyes, like Jisung said something magical. “Like, a therapist? That—That would be the best thing for me, right? If I—Would the company let me? Could I try? I think I want to try.”

He looks from Chan’s eyes to Changbin’s, to Jeongin and Seungmin and Felix. To Hyunjin. Finally, they stop at Minho. 

“I want to get better. I—I want to live. For myself.”

Minho, who is looking at him with so much pride, so much love, that Jisung can feel his heart swell in his chest at the brightness of the older boy’s smile.

“I’m proud of you, Jisung.”

Jisung can’t remember the last time anyone has said that to him. 

  
  


Jisung is eighteen, and he knows, he _knows_ that the world breaks everyone down. He’s not special. He’s just another collection of shattered pieces, scattered across the world he’s claimed as his own, now. The world that he’s making a name for himself in. 

The world that is only broken person after broken person, their splintered fragments filling in one another’s cracks, before they’re sanded down and smoothed over.

Jisung is eighteen and the word _love_ ends up scratched on his heart by seven others.

Jisung is eighteen and he’s learning that love doesn’t have to hurt.

  
  
  


_‘The mind is its own place, and in itself_

_can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’_

**Author's Note:**

> lol SORRY I KNOW. If it sucks it’s bc I don’t proofread eeeee
> 
> Leave me some comments below, or even a kudo if you liked it!!
> 
> Maybe check out my other fics and follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/MVforVictory) @MVforVictory!!
> 
> ty


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